Accidents and Consequences

Speaking as an engineer, I’ll tell you right up front that I don’t worry so much about a temper tantrum from North Korea, Pakistan, Iran (et al)… as I do a ballistic accident. Consider the high-tech disasters from the past…

OK, you get the idea… At some point some nation is probably going to screw up with something like a high-tech ballistic missile or worse. Then what? You tell me… Here are my guesses, (probably as good as anything coming out of the White House or the Pentagon…)

Iran: If they accidentally pop something sizable into Israel, no doubt that the Israelis would answer back with something that resembles a mushroom cloud (especially under Netanyahu’s watch.)

India/Pakistan: Boom! Say no more.

N. Korea: Well, they could foul up and blast China in which case North Korea would no longer be an issue for consideration. (China is none too keen on refugees and they’re just a little bit more fussy about their border than we are.) Then again, Jim Jong Il could really screw the pooch and accidentally nail South Korea or even Japan… Needless to say that we’d stomp ugly on either of those scenarios.

And so it goes… Make your own Armageddon global, humanitarian, and financial disasters… It’s just a slight mistake away.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m an engineer… I used to work in the dreaded “Military Industrial Complex”. I understand the pressures working under even the best of conditions, and the folks mentioned in the nations above certainly aren’t working in the best of conditions.

Wouldn’t it be a hell of a note… So this is how it ends – with both a bang and a whimpering “oops.”

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One Response to Accidents and Consequences

As one who has worked in intelligence (NSA), my guess (which I would also say is as good – or better – than those coming from inside the beltway), is that we have a pretty good hunch what is going on.

But given a hair across the proverbial jackass of any one of these country’s unstable leaders and the lack of anger management skills will take over. That’s when saber rattling may accidentally (or intentionally) kick in.

The one area I tend to disagree with you on (and I would be hoping to be wrong) is that should one such event take place, I don’t think you would see the U.S. “stomp ugly.” No, I think you would hear Obama give a speach where he huffs and puffs and that’s about it. If he DOES allow our military to respond, we will discover he’s a paper tiger in that he will caution them to tread lightly instead of “Stomp Ugly” which is what would be necessary.

We’ll see. But I liked it better when we had a President that other nations feared to cross.

Oh, and that warning that Mumbles Biden gave us about Barack being “tested?”

Welcome to the first test of the semester. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a “final exam.”